Identification of Inlet and Outlet Locations for Cool Seawater Discharges from an LNG Facility

Two-dimensional hydrodynamic and advection-dispersion simulations were carried out to identify the appropriate locations of inlet and outlet for cool seawater discharges from the proposed Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) terminal using MIKE-21 suites of software. The model simulations were validated by comparing the observed and simulated hydrodynamics in terms of water depths, current speeds and directions. The model is satisfactorily correlated with coefficients 0.98, 0.86 and 0.91 for water depth, current speed and direction, respectively. The validated model was extended to predict the advection-dispersion phenomena for the two scenarios based on positions of inlet and outlet and their discharges. The predicted results of cool water discharges were compared to the existing Environmental Health and Safety, World Bank guidelines for LNG discharge facilities. It was observed that a trade-off is required before taking engineering decisions for selecting an environmentally acceptable and energy efficient option for such cool water discharges from an LNG facility.